resignation ltr

							                                    March 17, 2011


Diane Alperin, Interim University Provost and
Chief Academic Officer
Florida Atlantic University

Dear Diane,

It is with mixed feelings that I am submitting this letter of
resignation from the position of Dean of the Dorothy F.
Schmidt College of Arts and Letters. This has been one of
the most rewarding experiences in my more than 30 years
of experience in the academy. If you accept this request, I
will be returning to my tenured professorship in the School
of Communication and Multimedia Studies (SCMS) on May
09, 2011 and will immediately go on study leave until
January 2012.

It has been my singular pleasure to work closely with the
Provost's Office, my colleagues in the deanery, and the
leadership of our College, staff, and faculty committees.
During my tenure as Dean, I streamlined the administration
to reduce administrative costs. We did this in the worst
economic crisis FAU had faced in its history and our central
goal was not just reduce costs but also to preserve faculty
lines and staff positions. We have hired 25 tenure track
faculty and 24 instructors in three years. The overall effect
of these changes can be clearly seen in the growth of
student credit hour production (from a total of 158,748 SCH
in 2007-08 to 169,641 SCH in 2009-10). DFS College’s
overall cost per FTE is the lowest in the entire university, a
telling marker of efficient use of existing resources.

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This is also a clear indicator of how hard our faculty work in
the classroom and how remarkably helpful they are in the
mission of the University to serve students.

The DFS College consists of an incredible talent pool of
highly accomplished faculty in the arts, humanities and
social sciences. With 174 tenure track faculty and 55
instructors, the College is the largest academic enterprise at
FAU. The various academic programs spread over 11
departments and several centers have done exceedingly well
in the last three years under trying budget circumstances.
Our public programs serve not only the University
community but also the wider community in South Florida by
way of art exhibitions, musical and theatrical performances,
as well as symposia, international conferences and
distinguished speakers. This is an astounding
accomplishment by our faculty and students. Among the
many distinguished visitors we have hosted in the last three
years, the most notable among them was the Holy Dalai
Lama of Tibet. This lecture drew nearly 3500 people to hear
his lecture on the Boca Raton campus. This rich program of
activity draws nearly 50,000 patrons a year to FAU and
creates a tremendous amount of good will for the University.

There has been a remarkable growth in the number of grant
proposals submitted and awarded, as well as in the
philanthropic dollars raised to sustain our academic
programs and artistic activities. All faculty have been
encouraged to write grant proposals and seek fellowships at
other universities that would help further their research
agendas. Some of our faculty have won prestigious
fellowships such as the Guggenheim, as well as fellowships
at major research universities such as Yale, Princeton,
William and Mary and Dartmouth. Some faculty have
successfully brought in service grants from AmeriCorps, the
Scripps Foundation, etc., that have made significant
contributions to our students. The Department of
Languages, Linguistics and Comparative Literature won a

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federal grant of $200,000 to enhance Asian studies research
and teaching. Its immediate impact on the academic
program is that we were able to hire an assistant professor
to teach Arabic and Arabic Linguistics, who would contribute
in significant ways to the efforts that are already established
in the College for the pursuit of Middle East Studies.

In addition to these achievements, there have been many
challenges as well. Notably among them is the reduction of
Student Services staff in 2008-09, which now has been
rebuilt with professionally qualified student advisors, as well
as a professional leader for the unit. The doctoral program
has gone through the Provost’ evaluation for the first time
and is being revamped by two groups of faculty. Faced with
the possibility of elimination of the small MA degree program
due to budget shortfalls, the Women’s Studies Program
renamed itself as the Center for Women, Gender and
Sexuality Studies and its faculty conducted a successful
fundraising campaign last year. These are important and
responsible ways in which the College has handled
challenges and made gains for critically important programs.

One of our goals was to meet the University’s strategic
objective of increasing diversity. Of the 25 tenure track
faculty hired in the last three years, 15 are women and 5 are
persons of color. Among the staff also, there has been a
significant enhancement of diversity. Working closely with
President Brogan’s Office, I hired Maria Santamarina as the
Diversity Officer for FAU and also to teach in the intercultural
communications area on the Davie campus. The College has
contributed half of her salary for this major initiative that
has had a positive effect on the entire university.

We received approval from the Board of Trustees to launch a
new, intercollegiate Master of Fine Arts degree in Media,
Technology and Entertainment in collaboration with the
Department of Computer Science. SCMS has also drafted of
a proposal to establish a new MS degree in Science

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Journalism. In collaboration with the College of Science, the
Provost's Office, and Dr. Joyanne Stephens, we hired a
nationally recognized science journalist to teach on the
Jupiter campus. The expectation is that a new BS will be
created in science that will lead to the MS in science
journalism. These new programs are very exciting,
strategically important ventures for the University.

In terms of faculty development, the College launched the
Faculty Mentoring Program in 2009 to help junior faculty
during the pre-tenure period. Additionally, we preserved the
faculty research and travel support funds that are critical for
enhancing the research mission of the University. I was able
to raise some funds from the Life Long Learning Society in
Jupiter to set up a competitive grant program that would
assist five faculty members every year to help with their
research projects. In my tenure as Dean, 11 out of 12
faculty were successful in attaining tenure and promotion to
associate professorship, and 4 out of 5 faculty were awarded
full professorship. I’m proud of this record in this College.

When I began my tenure as Dean, I noticed that there was
hardly any recognition given to faculty who toiled for years
on writing single-authored books in the humanities and
social sciences, even though this is considered one of the
most important research contributions that scholars make to
their respective fields. To address this problem, the College
launched the Faculty Authors Series in 2008 with President
Brogan’s sponsorship. At this event, scholars from the
humanities and social sciences read excerpts from their
recently published books.

To recognize and reward outstanding teachers in the
College, we have just launched the Master Teachers
Program, in collaboration with the Dean of Undergraduate
Studies.

In terms of innovation, the College was successful in raising

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external funds to build the Living Room Theater complex
that was inaugurated early this academic year. This unique
operation is one of a kind in the entire nation where four
digital cinemas feature independent, classic, and art films
from all over the world for the enrichment of culture to the
campus community and for South Florida. The Living Room
Theaters also collaborate with faculty in SCMS to enhance
the academic programs in film and media studies. We
successfully completed the $22 million Culture and Society
Building in Boca Raton and also partnered with other entities
to complete a new building on the Davie Campus, to provide
the much-needed space for the growing programs that are
housed on that campus.

You will be happy to know that the donor community has
been expanded from the base that already existed. In the
last three years, the College has successfully raised a total
of $2,529,592 in gifts from a variety of donors. Many more
people with the resources to help this University have
become our friends and supporters. One such important
accomplishment is the significant contributions made last
year by three leading Boca Raton families -- the Schmidt
Family, the Wold Family, and Christine Lynn Family--
establishing the first ever endowment to support the Peace
Studies Program. When all matches are accounted for, there
will be $1.4 million in the Peace Studies Endowment to help
students and faculty to continue the critically important work
that the program has been doing for nearly 11 years.

We are cultivating many other donors to assist in
establishing research institutes (Middle East Institute, the
Classics Institute and the Human Rights Institute). What is
remarkable about this fundraising activity is the fact that
there are more faculty leaders engaged in the process of
fundraising in order to help our students and sustain the
academic programs now compared to three years ago.

Most importantly, we have worked hard to create a cultural

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shift in the College that emphasizes accountability,
transparency, and better communication. This was an
important charge given to me as the incoming Dean in
March 2008 by the then Provost Pritchett and President
Brogan. Various practices that had contributed to suspicion
and low morale in the College were abandoned and replaced
by best practices borrowed from some of the top research
universities in the country. These new practices have had a
positive effect on many processes, including the hiring of
faculty and staff, the evaluation of annual performance, and
the appointment of chairs and program directors. We have
also instituted open and rigorous processes for counter
offers when faculty get jobs at other institutions, when
Eminent Scholars use public funds to conduct research or
travel.

Faculty in all departments have worked hard with the Dean’s
Office to update promotion and tenure guidelines, as well as
annual performance guidelines, to institute best practices
and to apply higher standards across all the 11 departments.
Rigorous annual performance evaluations have now become
the norm in our College. Instituting rigor in annual
performance reviews of faculty and raising the bar for tenure
and promotion are signal achievements of the DFS College in
the last three years. Because of the complexities and
difficulties involved in achieving consensus among faculty
groups, this is one of the most difficult things to accomplish
in any university. I am, therefore, proud of my colleagues
for having accomplished these goals.

All in all, the last three years of my deanship have been
exciting, demanding, and, in so many ways, very rewarding.
I have had wonderful support in these endeavors from
various levels of the University and the College. Most
importantly, my fellow workers in the Dean's Office, the 11
academic department chairs, and a dedicated staff have
partnered to implement critical changes in conducting the
work of the College. No one individual can move institutions

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to higher levels of accomplishments, since this can only be
done as a collective enterprise. I am gratified to be able to
write that I have benefitted by having great colleagues at
FAU, not just great challenges.

It is time for me to return to my scholarship once again and
to the classroom. Please accept this letter, with my deepest
appreciation to FAU for giving me a once-in-a-life time
opportunity to contribute to positive change and to help
build FAU's reputation in the academic fields covered by the
DFS College.

                               Sincerely,



                               Manjunath Pendakur, Ph.D.
                               Professor and Dean